In our ‘living room’, Karin van den Boogaert and Carolien Cleiren receive all manner of World Music performers.
This time in Acoustic Roots the 2nd part of the concert of ‘Sklamberg & the Shepherds’ who performed at the Jewish Cultural Centre MerkAz in Utrecht on 7 February 2019.
Lorin Sklamberg (USA), Polina and Merlin Shepherd (UK) are old acquaintances of the Concertzender. In the spring of 2018 Acoustic Roots was a guest at the Synagogue of Delft, where they performed.
On 7 February 2019 the klezmer trio ‘Sklamberg & the Shepherds’ performed in the Jewish Cultural Centre MerkAz in Utrecht.
In this episode of Acoustic Roots you will hear part 2 of the registration of this concert, supplemented with parts and an interview which Karin van den Boogaert had with them in 2018. Part 1 was broadcasted in the programme Concertzender Live, in the previous hour.
The ceiling of the synagogue/MerkAz in Utrecht
‘Sklamberg & the Shepherds’ combine traditional and newly composed Yiddish and Russian singing with klezmer and south-Mediterranean music. Lorin, Polina and Merlin represent three nations, although their families originate from geographical locations which are in close vicinity of each other.
At the end of the 19th century Merlin’s great-grandparents emigrated from Ukraine and Romania to escape the pogroms and look for a better world in Europe. Lorin’s ancestors emigrated from a small town in the Ukraine to the United States. Polina’s grandparents escaped from the Shoah by fleeing from Kiev and Odessa to Siberia. Influenced by different cultures and maintaining the styles, they play original and traditional material with much liberty and spontaneity.
For part 1: read and listen here
